Google Gemini Experts in Germany

Project: Digital Sovereignty – Toll Collect

Workshop: Digital Sovereignty Recognize dependencies, reduce risks, remain capable of acting

Format

• One-day practical seminar

Target group

• Executive management
• IT managers
• Data protection officers
• Compliance functions

Content and objectives

• Systematic analysis of digital dependencies
• Assessment of legal and operational risks
• Development of a concrete plan to increase digital sovereignty
• Mapping of the entire IT infrastructure by participants
• Identification of critical dependencies on non-European providers
• Creation of a prioritized risk matrix based on:
• GDPR
• NIS2
• EU AI Act
• Joint development of options for action – from a hybrid model to complete migration to European solutions
• Development of an individual sovereignty roadmap with:
• Responsibilities
• Milestones
• Budget framework

Agenda

• Preliminary self-assessment (current infrastructure)
• Digital sovereignty? Nothing but an illusion
• Digital sovereignty 2026 – Germany’s dangerous dependency in focus
• Digital sovereignty & open source
• What is digital sovereignty?
• Three questions raised by digital sovereignty
• Reflection: Digital sovereignty in your own life
• Why is digital sovereignty existential now?
• Practical examples of digital sovereignty
• Schleswig-Holstein initiative
• Benefits of digital sovereignty for your company
• Assessing strategy options (cost-benefit matrix)
• Sovereign provider? 10 questions
• What does digital sovereignty specifically mean for your company?
• How do you shape digital sovereignty?
• Digital sovereignty and psychological safety
• Psychological safety: The key to high-performing teams
• Why psychological safety in your company?
• Benefits of psychological safety
• Invitation to group work: PsySafety Check (PS-C)
• The “Braintrust” experiment
• Creating a risk matrix
• Creating a roadmap & project plan
• European alternatives to US Big Tech
• 10-point plans:
• NIS2
• EU AI Act
• GDPR
• ISO 27001

• Architected, Deployed and Supported hosted email solutions in Linux and Windows environments with enterprise-grade anti-spam and security architecture for service-provider environments.
• Managed Microsoft Azure environments including Virtual Machines, VNets, Storage, VPN, and Firewall configuration.
• Administered Microsoft Exchange Server (2010-2019), Microsoft Exchange Server SE, Active Directory, PKI, Hyper-V and Zimbra environments with disaster recovery planning and operational support.
• Led Microsoft 365 onboarding and migration projects from Exchange, IMAP, and Zimbra platforms to Microsoft 365.
• Prepare security and compliance to support Microsoft 365 Copilot.
• Implement information protection and data loss prevention by using Microsoft Purview.
• Implement retention, eDiscovery, and communication compliance in Microsoft Purview.
• Integrated Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS), and Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS).
• Delivered secure hybrid infrastructure solutions integrating Microsoft Windows Server and Linux-based enterprise environments.
• Supported enterprise integration projects involving Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, Red Hat, Barracuda ESG, Qmail and Zimbra Platforms.

Developed the product vision and outcome strategy for a new registry platform, designed a management workshop for strategic alignment, conducted BPMN process mapping across systems and roles, analyzed user story practices and further developed them on an outcome basis, and brought together stakeholders from business departments, management and the external development partner.

Skills: Product Strategy, Outcome Roadmapping, Stakeholder Workshops, BPMN/Process Analysis, Miro, Linear

Building a company to "support people over 50 as they start a new career"

Focus: "AI first" approaches to establish all relevant processes reliably in the shortest possible time

Core areas:

• Business development (including competitor monitoring, channel selection, B2B and B2C strategies)

• Marketing (building and optimizing funnels, organic and with paid ads)

• Sales (direct B2B and B2C outreach resulting from marketing funnels)

• Fulfillment (platform and process development, AI optimization)

• Product management (developing the offering and MOAT)

• One-to-one coaching and mentoring, platform development and operations

• Wrote the book chapter “Entwicklung eines digitalen Geschäftsmodells” for the Springer Gabler collection “Praxishandbuch Digitales Management”.

Stabilization of a critical logistics outsourcing setup in the context of an SAP S/4HANA transformation. The focus was on restoring a reliable operational fact base between the client, logistics service provider, international supplier plants and the SAP/IT organization.

• Coordination between the client, global logistics service provider, international supplier plants, SAP/IT teams, Quality Management and the operational shop floor.
• Management, monitoring and operational correction of Inbound Deliveries; integration of Outbound Delivery processes.
• Analysis of interface, posting, batch and master data errors between SAP S/4HANA, logistics service provider, supplier plants and internal business functions.
• Significant reduction of critical inventory differences between the client and logistics service provider.
• Improved operational management capability in the logistics environment and creation of a common fact base.
• Reduction of recurring error patterns in the areas of Inbound Deliveries, inventory, interfaces, batch/posting logic and service provider processes.

• I support medium-sized clients with their funding needs.
• I evaluate operational business processes and translate complex legal and regulatory requirements into business requirements, target models and actionable roadmap epics.
• I use Generative AI tools and automation in a targeted way to efficiently create requirements documentation, process analyses, evaluations, meeting preparation materials, customer analyses and decision papers.

Non-custodial staking and digital-asset infrastructure for Web3 wallets, exchanges, and institutional custodians

Advised the COO on delivery for staking and digital-asset infrastructure serving institutional custodians, exchanges and wallets across regulated markets.

• Ran the company-wide KPI and OKR process across the organisation, raising company-wide OKR achievement from 50% to 65%.
• Designed and implemented OKR/KPI frameworks enabling structured quarterly delivery cycles and executive-level execution visibility.
• Defined, documented and improved the P2P governance and operating processes across programmes and operations.

• Industry: Insurance, Trade, IT
• Customers & Projects: Consulting and selling insurance and similar services
• Main tasks: Insurance consulting (health insurance, retirement planning, wealth building); commercial services, inside and field sales; sales data analysis and forecasting; customer consulting and support; opening a new sales headquarters for private and business customers; business development & innovation management; business use case development; process optimization; stakeholder management; team leadership and training; preparation and delivery of trainings;
• Technologies used: Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Teams, Jira, Draw.IO, Camunda 8, Java (8, 17,21,25), Git, Spring Boot, Spring Batch, Spring Data REST, Spring Web, Spring Security, J-Unit, Playwright, Lombock, Vaadin, H2, PostgreSQL (16, 17 18), pgAdmin, Docker, LLMs, JasperSoft Studio, JasperReports

Reporting and controlling using Power BI for a production ERP system

• Analysis of ERP data and interfaces for use in Power BI dashboards
• Evaluation and migration of existing reports (e.g. Excel) to Power BI
• Development of an authorization concept for selective data access
• Documentation and training on the use and customization of Power BI dashboards

Label: Power BI, Excel, SelectLine ERP, Microsoft SQL, SQL Server Management Studio

• Repaired a broken “ScrumBan” process, then established a pure Kanban system; increased output in the Kanban flow by 22% within four weeks

• Increased team autonomy and decision-making ability by implementing new decision strategies; resulting in up to 25% better outcomes

• Redesigned retrospectives (including one-to-one coaching and workshops), which led to consistent implementation of the resulting action items

• Intensive coaching of Product Owners (POs) to develop and support “Empowered Teams”, alongside leadership development to place agile frameworks and methods in a realistic context (“de-illusioning”)

• Supported change management processes to promote an agile company culture among management and teams, improving internal communication to increase transparency and effectiveness in agile processes

• Technical leadership across hardware, firmware, and software teams; scope: hardware/firmware team (4 people) and leadership group (5 people)
• Consolidated and documented a product family that had grown over more than 15 years and aligned it with CRA compliance — from the bare-metal I/O module to the cloud interface.
• Provided the most important customer product with the essential requirements and architecture documentation within two months — for a firmware landscape that had grown over more than 15 years. It now supports the customer’s modernization strategy.
• Established a monthly reporting line to the supervisory board and executive board within three months: nine meetings since 12/2025. The report itself is versioned and built from the CI pipeline; it is based on automatically collected activity and release data instead of assessments.
• Built a container-based CI/CD infrastructure from scratch: cross-compilation, host tests, and documentation builds in one continuous pipeline.
• Introduced declarative QA gates for DevOps and development artifacts — from the start using lefthook instead of pre-commit, executed in a dedicated container image.

Technologies used: arc42, req42, tpo42, docToolchain, PlantUML, ArchiMate, C4 model, ADR, C, C++ (GTest), CMake, Bare Metal (ARM Cortex-M3/M7), OCI containers, Jenkins, lefthook, Prometheus, Grafana, SBOM, CRA, OPC, SCADA, PLC integration, IPv6 migration, Zero Trust, Sociocracy 3.0, Cynefin

• Conclusion of partner agreements with OnePlan (portfolio management) and ForProject/EVMS (project controlling); ongoing qualification and implementation of both tools.
• Project management for the relaunch of [link] with a new focus on integrated PM/PPM toolchains.
• Development and implementation of approx. 60 PM standard methods (PMSP, CMSP, QMSP) according to ICB4 & PMBoK8 as a database application on MS Power Automate / M365 / MS Project, with a planned cloud launch in 2025.
• Deployment and cut-over standard process defined as Quality Gate QG07: go-live plan, cut-over plan, communication package, production launch, smoke test in production, hypercare team, incident and SLA management, confirmation of production stability and operational handover.
• Development of a classification and retrieval system (TOC) for ChatGPT projects to enable immediate cross-application object activation.

Tools: LinkedIn, Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Infinity, MS Copilot, OnePlan, EVMS/ForProject, Power Automate, SQL DB, O365, MS Project, MS Cloud, ICB4, PMBoK7, M365, Teams

In-house consulting provider and driver of transformation within the group, multi-stakeholder environment and C-level.

Realignment and stabilization of a cross-functional transformation and scaling program within the group. Sharpening the target picture, priorities, and set of measures, as well as building reliable governance, planning, and steering structures. Structuring roles, responsibilities, and strategic initiatives while including AI and IT automation ideas.

• Designed program realignment and project portfolio management

• Developed strategy model and target picture for IT projects

• Structured portfolio, roadmap, and priorities

• Established governance and regular meetings

• Worked out operating model for flagship projects

• Assessed AI and automation ideas

• Clarified roles and responsibilities

• Implemented change measures

• Developed, moderated, and evaluated workshops

• Transformed 17 initiatives into a steering model

• Increased transparency and decision-making ability

• Strengthened commitment in steering

• Sharpened the operating model structurally

• Integrated three top-5 institutes

• Involved over 80% of stakeholders

• Governance

• Portfolio steering (PPM)

• Change management

• Artificial intelligence

• Workflow automation

• AI use case assessment

• Confluence

• Jira

• Stakeholder management